


Haversham Westley's School for Boys

by sideraclara (angeloscastiel)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Community: HPFT, Harry Potter Next Generation, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-07
Updated: 2017-07-13
Packaged: 2018-07-12 20:57:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7122310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angeloscastiel/pseuds/sideraclara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Extract from Department of Magical Education Official Review, Ministry of Magic, filed by Leopold Jones 26 November 2030:</i> Pardon my frankness, sirs, but Haversham Westley's School for Boys is where the principles of magical education go to die.</p><p> </p><p>  <i>a story of innovation, impropriety, and coming of age (better late than never)</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The first thing one noticed upon entering Haversham Westley’s School for Boys was that it was not exclusively for boys at all. In fact, despite its name, Haversham Westley’s School for Boys boasted thirteen girls on its roll of twenty-nine, as well as three students of varying expressions who had simply Vanished the section regarding gender on their enrolment forms.  
  
The school was known to the British wizarding world (at least, among those who had heard of it in the first place) as an alternative to Hogwarts for, well, _alternative_ students. Its founder, the eponymous Haversham Westley, had been born Ambrosius Nott II and was already something of a pariah by the time he finished Hogwarts, having developed a most peculiar interest in something he called Science and claiming as his house not Slytherin, as his ancestors had for eight centuries, but Ravenclaw. Not content with this blatant flouting of social norms, Haversham went on to study at Cambridge (physics, no less – what greater affront to the institution of wizardry than _physics?_ ), and with the money his parents gave him to change his name and pretend he had never once darkened the doorstep of the Nott family manor, he built a school.  
  
Haversham Westley’s School for Boys, known variantly as Haversham, Westley’s, _That_ School, The Other One, the Madhouse, or, more contemporarily, HWS, had successfully managed to stay under the Ministry’s radar for a good two hundred years before its burgeoning roll brought it to the reluctant attention of the Department of Education. The school, which throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries had seldom boasted more than fifteen enrolled students at any given time, was “undergoing something of a Renaissance,” according to current Headmistress Hester Liebermann (known to students and staff as ‘Leebs’) and had seen a steady increase in enrolments since the conclusion of the Second Wizarding War. The new environment of post-war stability had done wonders for innovation, commerce, the arts, culture, and the dissemination of new ideas across wizarding Britain; it had also, unfortunately, brought with it a Golden Age of bureaucratic box-ticking.  
  
Bureaucratic box-ticking, in this case, meant an Education Review.  
  
“ – This review will be carried out by a member of the Department of Education, to be selected by Senior Undersecretary to the Minister Percy Weasley, who will observe classes as they would normally function for a period of up to one school term – what does that mean?” Leebs asked the loosely assembled staff.  
  
Pat Delaney wrinkled his nose. “Sounds like an audit if you ask me. A really long, drawn-out audit.”  
  
“We could have some fun with this,” Maisie Barker said after a pause. “Let’s _enrol_ him.”  
  
“In classes?”  
  
“Put him in with the sixth years,” Pat added, eyes lighting up at the idea. “I’m sure August won’t mind.”  
  
“That seems a bit unfair, given he’s not here to defend himself.”  
  
“That’s his bloody problem,” Maisie said with uncharacteristic ferocity. “It was meant to be his shout for morning tea, and he’s cleared off.”  
  
“All right.” Leebs knew a good argument when she heard one. “We’ll enrol this official into sixth year, and he can observe our classes properly.” Snapping her planner shut in what she hoped was a highly efficient gesture, she swept from the room and left the silence of a slowly dawning realisation behind her.  
  
“Sixth year,” Maisie said after a pause. “That’s the one with – ”  
  
“Yeah,” Pat mumbled. “And – ”  
  
“Yep.”  
  
“Well,” Pat said brightly, “He’ll be in for an interesting term.”  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  
Leopold Jones was thirty-five, perpetually single, and sported a prominently receding hairline and a chequered necktie he had borrowed from his father seven years ago. He had gotten a job at the Ministry three months after leaving Hogwarts, where he had been sorted rather optimistically into Gryffindor, and had stayed there for seventeen years as something of an interdepartmental lackey. He had formed his closest connection with his first boss, Percy Weasley, and the highest praise his colleagues could give him was that the pair made a very compatible team. This, combined with the fact that the latest department he had been lackeying for was Education, made him a natural choice for the task of reviewing Haversham Westley’s School for Boys.  
  
“I’ve never even heard of it,” he told his boss.  
  
Percy gave him a long, disapproving look that probably meant something along the lines of “What have you been _doing_ in the Department of Education if you weren’t even aware the Department does, in fact, oversee more than one school”, but luckily for Leopold he didn’t bother to voice those thoughts, and Leopold did not have to come up with an answer.  
  
“You’ll be there for ten weeks,” Percy told him instead. “Report to the Headmistress’s office by Floo at eight o’clock sharp on Monday morning.”  
  
“Yes sir,” Leopold said. “I won’t let you down, sir.”  
  
“I know you won’t,” Percy said with more conviction than he felt, and gave Leopold a fatherly sort of pat on the shoulder before striding off.  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  
There was very little official information about Haversham Westley’s School for Boys. Leopold, being a conscientious sort, spent his afternoon attempting to research the school (he also found he had little interest in the filing and stamping work he would have been engaged in otherwise, now that he had a Proper Project to do) and discovered quickly that it was a bigger task than he expected.  
  
There was a small storeroom off the Education office, cold and dimly lit, which was avoided like the plague in winter but now, in the midst of the closest London got to a heatwave, most of the office had migrated into it. Employees sat crosslegged on the stone floor with their laps full of parchment, while some of the interns had climbed onto the tops of the stacks and were lounging there with cups of the overpriced ice-cold pumpkin juice being sold in the Atrium. There was too much camaraderie in the room for Leopold, to say nothing of interns’ boots that dangled in front of the records he was trying to reach.  
  
“Haversham Westley?” a girl repeated, levitating her empty juice cup out the door to the bin outside and jumping down with an impressive lightness of foot. “My mate’s cousin went there. It’s a bit weird.”  
  
“Weird how?”  
  
The girl shrugged, seeming to realise who she was talking to and glancing up at her friend. “Just is.”  
  
Leopold gave up and kept searching.  
  
“Think the records are over there,” the girl offered, pointing to the far right corner before hopping back up into the stacks and disappearing from view.  
  
The records turned out to be one lone, slim folder with a piece of parchment barely a foot long inside, listing the name of the school, the foundation date (1814), the enrolments for 2030/31 (twenty-nine) and an _address_ in Berkshire. The records noted there were no concealment charms on the school’s grounds either.  
  
Wondering what the hell he’d gotten himself into, Leopold filed the parchment away and decided, for the first time in seventeen years, to knock off early.


	2. Chapter 2

Lysander Scamander was one of the three HWS students who had vanished the gender section on their enrolment forms. He – and he used ‘he’ arbitrarily, having stripped it of any gendered meaning in his mind a long time ago – identified officially as “who the fuck knows”, though he found “queer” and a vague hand wiggle to be a suitable alternative in polite company. He was the spitting image of his mother, with a delicate bone structure, long eyelashes and wavy, dirty blond hair grown long enough that everyone he met assumed he was a girl.

“Oh gosh, I’m so sorry,” they would say when he introduced himself, and he would shrug and say that they could call him whatever they liked, and being a girl wasn’t really an insult anyway. Sometimes he found he preferred being a girl, and introduced himself as Lysa; sometimes he tied his hair back in a low ponytail and drew out every syllable, Ly-san-der, and on those days he somehow seemed taller, more solid than usual; most days he went by Lys (with a hard S, so it didn’t sound like lice) and left people floundering over the question, “so, are you – sorry – um – are you a boy or a girl?”

“Nah,” Lys would say, flash them a grin, and move on.

Lysander was the Class Captain of sixth year, which as a title meant very little except that he got a shiny badge and could, on some occasions, claim an element of superiority over his three classmates. On this occasion, it meant he was part of the delegation to meet the Ministry official who would be joining them for the next term. His teacher was not impressed.

“Why they decided to put him in sixth year…” August muttered as they entered Leebs’ office. He never mentioned the sentiment, because Leopold Jones had arrived two minutes early and was already standing stiffly on the rug in the middle of the office, clutching a briefcase.

“You must be Leopold,” August said cheerfully, extending a hand. In his haste to respond, Leopold dropped his umbrella, flushed red, and stumbled over a “yes, yes, lovely to meet you” before picking it up again.

“And this is our sixth year captain, Lysander Scamander.”

Leopold looked briefly afraid, as if worried he’d have to drop his brolly again, but Lys just grinned and offered to show him to his room.

“You’re down the end of the senior corridor,” Lys explained, taking off with a long stride that left Leopold struggling to keep up, “with a couple rooms between you and the seventh years. They get a bit rowdy in the weekends, but you can just chuck a silencing wall between you and them if it gets a bit much.”

Lys broke into a jog up the sweeping staircase leading from the foyer, made a sharp right, and paused for Leopold to catch up before continuing down the corridor. “There are twelve rooms in each wing,” Lys continued. “This one’s for sixth and seventh years, behind you is fourth and fifth years, above are the second and third years, and the babies get a wing to themselves. Maisie – that’s the junior dean – lives up there as well, but the rest of the staff are on the third floor.”

Lys came to a halt outside a door at the end of the corridor, pulled a key from his pocket, and dropped it into Leopold’s hand. “This is you. One-oh-six.”

The room was small and bright, with a large window on the far wall, a single bed, a desk and chair and a bookshelf. A wardrobe was tucked into one corner – “You’re welcome to use extension charms on this, but you don’t look like you need it” – and within was a stack of bedding.

“Classes start at nine,” Lys continued. “Have you picked your classes? You’ll need to come down to the Registry to get your timetable.”

For some reason, it was this that seemed to make Leopold suddenly self-aware. “I am an adult,” he said slowly.

“Yes,” Lys agreed. “But you still need a piece of paper to find out where you need to be. Have you picked your classes?”

“Um, no.”

Lys regarded him carefully. “I suppose it’d be best if you just took what you did at Hogwarts, more or less.” He was off again, and Leopold hurriedly dumped most of his belongings on the desk, leaving only the school equipment he’d dug out from his childhood bedroom that weekend in his briefcase, and followed.

“In sixth year you have a lot of freedom in choosing your subjects,” Lys continued once Leopold had caught up, “Except you need to take at least one subject from each area – humanities, sciences, and practical magic. You can take five or six subjects – you should probably do five.”

“I was good at school,” Leopold said defensively.

“Do six then,” Lys shrugged. “This is the Registry. Jen, this is Leopold from the Ministry. He’s here to pick his classes.”

“Righto,” Jen said. “Sixth year?”

“Yep.”

She passed the class list over. “I assume Lysander’s told you, you need at least one subject from the three areas – ” she gestured at the headings – “And the languages are closed entry, unless you did Runes at Hogwarts.”

“No.” Leopold scanned the list. “I’ll do…Botany I guess, and oh, Alchemy looks interesting…and Charms, Potions and History.”

“Done,” Jen said after a moment of scribbling, and passed over a timetable. “Lysander, I assume you’ll be wanting yours too?”

“That’d be great, thanks Jen.”

“I don’t have many classes,” Leopold said after a moment.

“No,” Lys agreed. “Those are all study periods – we only have two classes per week for each subject, and the rest of the time we do independent study. The languages meet more often though.”

Neither Lys nor Leopold had classes until ten o’clock, so Lys wandered through the dining hall for a coffee and decided to take Leopold on a tour through the grounds. The latter walked infuriatingly slowly, so Lys forced himself to slow down as he tossed throwaway explanations over his shoulder – “this is the dining hall – you’ve seen the registry, this is admin in general, Leebs’ office of course, and through here is the library…”

In the doorway to the library, Leopold took out a small leatherbound notebook and a quill from his briefcase, jotted down the date, and carefully wrote “Library – surprisingly large”.

“We’ve had a lot of bequests over the years,” Lys said, not bothering to be subtle about looking over his shoulder. “It’s a pretty decent collection, and a lot of the teachers contribute material too.”

The Grand Tour took less than half an hour, and Lys reached the staircase with an underwhelming “So, yeah. That’s it,” and took off to while away some time in the senior common room.

The seventh years, deciding the novelty of the giant, well-equipped senior common room had worn off now a group younger than them had access to it, had taken off as a body to the observatory, which was unused during the day and apparently made an excellent clandestine hangout to store alcohol and enjoy “shit bantz”. It meant the sixth years, all four – well, five now – of them, had four couches, two armchairs, a games table, a fireplace, and a small kitchenette to themselves.

“Where’s my brother?” Lys asked, arriving in the common room and sprawling across a couch.

“Defence,” replied Essie without looking up.

“Poor fucker,” Dave the Muggle added. “He’s the only one with a nine am start all year.”

Dave the Muggle was probably unique in the school’s history, though nobody could be bothered to find out for sure. He was a local kid, starting at the school six years ago with the others after his mum had wandered into the Registry to inquire about fees – she’d always wanted to send her boy to a good school, but she never thought she could afford it – and Jen, new to the job and knowing only that Haversham Westley’s never turned away a student – made some quick calculations, named a startlingly low figure, and enrolled Dave the Muggle ten minutes later.

To his credit, Dave the Muggle had barely batted an eye when he discovered he was actually attending a magic school. By the time Leebs discovered the mistake, she was too fond of him to send him elsewhere, and promised to see to it that “As far as the Muggles know, you’ll leave Haversham Westley’s with your A-levels”. Now that he was sixth year, Dave the Muggle had more freedom to avoid magical subjects (though, as they discovered in first year Wandwork, most wands threw one hell of a tanty if waved about by a Muggle) though his classmates were sad to lose his snarky commentary in the back of Charms.

The door opened again, and in walked Leopold Jones.

“This is the Ministry geezer,” Lys said, on his own turf now and gesturing to Leopold with a lazy arm. “Leopold, this is Essie and Dave the Muggle.”

“Dave the Muggle?” Leopold repeated.

“It’s not his name,” Essie said. “Just his epithet. You can call him Dave if you want.”

“Is this your entire year group?” Leopold asked after a pause, evidently deciding not to pursue the matter of Dave the Muggle. “There’s not many of you.”

“There’s Lorcan too,” Dave said. “He’s in Defence.”

“Defence Against the Dark Arts?” Leopold repeated, brightening. “I always loved Defence Against the Dark Arts. I was never very good at it, but sometimes we had Harry Potter in to teach us.” He looked around the room, obviously expecting them to be impressed.

“Cool,” Lys said after a pause. “He’s like, my godfather.”

“What house were you in?” Essie asked. She was yet to look up from her Runes work, and Leopold took a moment to realise she was talking to him.

“Oh,” Leopold said, and took another moment to remember. “Ah, I was in Gryffindor.”

“Boring,” Essie said dismissively. “I was in Slytherin.”

“You went to Hogwarts?”

“Yeah.” Essie shrugged, turning the page and taking the end of her pen out of her mouth. “For a bit. It was boring as shit though, everything was so easy and the other kids were super dumb, so my parents took me out and sent me here.”

“Essie’s a genius,” Dave the Muggle explained.

“I am not. Can I see what you got for passage seventeen B, Muggsy?”

“Only if you never call me that again.” Dave the Muggle passed over his book.

“Can’t make any promises.” Pen back in her mouth, Essie tuned out.

Leopold was openly staring. “How old is she?” he whispered to Dave the Muggle, who happened to be in earshot.

“Twelve.”

“In sixth year?”

“Like I said. She’s a genius.”

“I find it difficult to believe Hogwarts didn’t challenge her,” Leopold said, oblivious to the fact that there was nobody left who cared about what he was saying, “Because Hogwarts is an excellent school. The best in the world, some have said.”

“Hogwarts can go suck a dick,” Lys called from the couch, and Essie high fived him.


End file.
